Monday, April 15, 2013

NRR: a most riduculous vacay (pics galore)

First and foremost, I am not insensitive to the tragedy in Boston today.  My heart is heavy and my eyes have brimmed full of tears more than once today as I've watched the coverage unfold.  I will pray for our community to hold each other tight and continue to keep putting one foot in front of the other.  There is not a stronger group of spirits that I know than the ones I have met through running.  Persevere, runners, persevere.
But as I go back to work tomorrow and face a insurmountable pile of fun, I will spend my remaining hours of freedom sharing my super-awesome-ridiculous-over-the-top-fun-silly-exciting-relaxing week with you!
The boring stuff: I ran 5 of the 10 days I was gone.  Just as planned.  2 outside runs. 1 fabulous, 1 terrible.  3 treadmill boat runs. 1 less hungover, 1 more hungover, 1 slightly intoxicated (don't judge...).  They were all 7 miles.  The ones outside were about 7:45-7:55 pace and the ones inside were at 7.2 mph (8:20).  I was happy I ran and it was just enough that I *normal*, but not too much that I couldn't enjoy my vacation.
'Cause good God, I enjoyed it!!!!!!!
Instead of a day-by-day, let's just hit some highlights captured by the camera lens.
First up, my sister and I met some new friends on the deck about 5 minutes after we had mojitos in hand:
Boys on deck
We decided that we couldn't have all the fun, so we let our SO's pose with our new friends:
Boys boys boys
My brother (Chris) and my husband best friend (Jeff) were sharing a balcony room next to Adam and myself and so we were able to make a giant balcony by opening the divider.  It was great to relax (or party) on our own little deck:
Balcony love
Sunday was our first formal night and I got into my first sparkles outfit.
Ridiculous heels
You can't really see the sparkles of the dress in the pic, but I promise they were there.  Besides, the shoes are clearly the more important part of this ridiculousness:
THE shoes
There is a 3 drink minimum to wear these heels.  And a 3 drink minimum to Tebow wearing the heels next to a Tebow jersey (it's kind of a *thing* in our group):
Tebow and tebow
Hubs looked quite dapper as well.  He's in the red shirt:
Boys formal night
The next day, I sobered up to drive an ATV alongside Adam in Cozumel. So. Much. Fun.  I had dirt all over my teeth because I was smiling the whole time we rode:
ATVs!
When you start your breakfasts with 22 drinks for 6 people (caffeine, caffeine, booze, booze, juice, juice with booze, etc), you know the day is bound to be successful:
22 drink minimum
We went snorkeling in Belize:
Adam snorkels
Then relaxed under palm trees on our private island with frosty beverages:
Under palm trees
Some *ahem* people, might be tempted to do Usain Bolt poses while eating cheeseburgers in a bikini:
Swimmy Usain
The boys were on the same silly train and decided it was Hawaiian shirt night for dinner:
Tebow and hawaiian shirts
All good nights are topped off by rousing renditions of the Cupid Shuffle, the Electric Slide, the Wobble, and dancing like a fiend until 4am.  What's the best idea at 4am??? PIZZA!!!! Jeff and I (Adam's a gambler, not a dancer) met some frat boys at the 24-hour pizza place and laughed until our sides hurt.  Unfortunately, Jeff's pizza suffered a severe tragedy:
Pizza party foul
Wednesday (well, from 4am til Thursday breakfast) was sober day.  Adam and I had a date with the dolphins.  I've never been madly in love with dolphins, but this being my 7th cruise, I wanted to do something I'd never done before.  This excursion made me madly in love with dolphins!!!!!!!!!!!! They are like sea dogs.  They fetch, talk, swim around like crazy, and are seemingly loyal creatures.  Adam and I got to 'hold' Bailey:
Dolphin Hug
She also gave kisses too:
Dolphin Kiss
We also got to don snorkel gear and swim around with them.  Seriously, if you cruise, you really should consider doing this.  It was worth every penny.  This was the second excursion we've done with Anthony's Key Resort in Honduras and I have nothing but good things to say.
The following day, we hung out on a sand bar in the Cayman Islands.  I found some more creatures to hold (but they aren't as cute and smart):
Stingray holding
Later in the evening, the crew got dressed up for formal night #2:
The gang
And I practiced more Usain poses:
Dressy Usain
In the morning, I ordered the most ridiculous thing I found on the brunch menu. Fruit Loop Crusted French Toast.  Shut the front door!!!! It was actually pretty good. My inner fat kid was like, yippee!!!!!
Fruit Loop french toast
We hung out on deck all day and watched another gorgeous sunset from the balcony:
Sunset
Then we got ready for dinner.  A little back story: My in-laws own a trophy/engraving business in Miami.  We got my brother-in-law to make us a trophy in route to the boat:
Trophy time
We kind of were not thinking at the beginning of the cruise that it was going to be pretty obvious that our barman would end up getting it.  But then he started saying things like "I know your Folio number, you don't need to give me your card" and hanging out for about 50% of our meals.  So my sister and I dressed up the trophy to look like our barman:
Decorate trophy
When we presented it to him, he was actually so elated that my heart swelled a little.
Give your bar man a trophy
On the final night, I was so happy I got my favorite towel animal in my room, the elephant:
Elephant Towel Animal
So of course, there are so many things I left out for various reasons (I forgot, I forgot on purpose, I'm not allowed to speak of it outside of international waters, etc).  But clearly, if you need cruise tips, I'm your girl.

No comments:

Post a Comment